Replying to myself, but posting that got me thinking. Maybe this isn't necessarily a difference in men and women. Could it be that men simply don't have a reason to believe they're being discriminated against, so they have to face challenges instead of making excuses?

Hear hear. I've had problematic coworkers from both sexes, but 90% of the cases where someone expected their work to be respected because it existed were women. I don't know where this attitude comes from, but I think it could explain many of the people who see discrimination everywhere.

Just last week one female coworker was complaining that an opinionated colleague is hard to work with. Funny thing is that I get along with him perfectly well because I can be equally forceful about my opinions, and neither of us hold any grudges. Conversely, the last time I argued with a female coworker she started ignoring our project rather than dealing with it.

Mind you, I don't believe this makes female employees unemployable, or that 100% of them do this. Men have other problems, and I'm probably too much of an opinionated asshole too. It's the people who believe women and men aren't different* who are crazy.

*on average, obviously.

A lot of people in the media seem to want Nokia to fail, but the N900 is in fact highly successful in its market segment. When it was launched, Nokia said Maemo wasn't ready for mass consumption yet, and now say that it is exceeding sales expectations. According to Engadget, it sold 100 000 in the first five weeks, not months.

What Nokia also said is that the next product *will* be ready for mass consumption, so we can safely expect significantly stronger sales based on their surprisingly honest statements about the N900. It does have a real chance of changing the world for GNU/Linux (as opposed to Android/Linux).

And why wasn't the N900 ready for mass consumption? They haven't yet ported 100% of their features from Symbian, and most of the default applications are stuck in landscape mode due to their heritage. Don't trust the mainstream press on this. Despite reporters' bad conclusions about the cause, the UI in general is extremely well designed, and counting the number of apps in the Ovi repository is ridiculous given that the Maemo repository is full of apps.

So what you're saying is that the kneejerkers were correct? I certainly wouldn't buy anything by Apple anymore without thorough research into what kind of proprietary problems I'd be causing myself. Maybe they're actually smarter by just avoiding the logo and not wasting their time.

BTW, that article is a great example of why subsidized hardware is bad for consumers. You get what the advertising department feels it can advertise, and nothing more. If ISPs and wireless providers wanted to help ignorant consumers, they could help them set up a few recommended products. But please, stop including the hardware in the monthly cost. That just forces everyone into the same mold unless you want to pay twice for a router or phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Browser_for_S60

It wasn't perfect, but neither is/was the iPhone browser. The UI was obviously optimized for non-touch.

You know, personal anecdotes aren't always bad evidence. If there weren't more people like him, companies wouldn't be offering the functions he is talking about using. Even more importantly, Gates never said that everyone would be proficient at using the modern tools, so if this one guy uses them properly and the article's author doesn't, that still makes Gates right.

Are we going to hear about how correlation doesn't equal causation next? :)

Web browsers existed on many phones, but the iPhone UI was superior. Your mistake about the browser supports the gp's point, though.

Bullshit. 3G has a higher power drain, but not even in 2007 was it so high that a smartphone should've gone without.

This is why there will never be an iPhone killer. Better features are dismissed without reason, and any device offering all of the iPhone's strong points would be derided as a copy.

Under 5 cent purchases are rounded up so you can't buy individual bulk items for free.

Exactly, but TFA is one big strawman. The argument is that closed platforms are bad, not that open platforms are a right. We can call Apple assholes without trying to revoke their business license.

Hell, I hate Flash too. But there's a huge difference between not actively supporting a technology and doing your best to ensure people can't use it even when they want to.

I save everything I watch, because hard drives are so cheap. Who knows when you'll want to go through anything? Might as well keep it.

And this way, your kids won't have to start from zero.

I'd be more likely to guess that normal computers simply got boring, and he turned his attention to portable devices. Why would a really creative mind stick to polishing the same product over and over again?

Yes, we should all declare war on pollution.

That depends. Is it in my job description? No one is forcing you to accept a job you don't want.

The only thing that degrades hookers is people's attitudes towards them, and the exploitation that we allow to happen because we push prostitution underground.

Tell that to the Icelanders. I can't believe a law like that got passed in Northern Europe in the year 2010. It may seem like a minor detail from a small island, but I am appalled.